On a trip to the Fashion Island Daily Grill on Sunday for breakfast, the extremely slow service gave us time to talk about the nature of why we were receiving slow service.
Why is it that I could walk into the restaurant on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. and get perfectly wonderful service, yet when I walked into that same restaurant on Sunday at 11:00 a.m., I received absolutely horrible service?
Now, before you think immediately to factoring in church, the golf course, and any other things that drive more people to the restaurant on Sunday, I would like to propose a point...Whether the restaurant is more crowded on Sunday or not, should I not expect the same level of service on a Sunday?
I think it is up to the manager of the restaurant to ensure that there is enough staff on hand on a busier day, not to just expect that the customers will allow a lower level service because the restaurant is busier. Believe it or not, I was told by the waiter that the bad service I received was because there were just so many tables today...I found it funny because it didn’t look like they brought in more tables...yes, ha, ha, I know what he meant, but why was the service level lower because it was more crowded?
I think the answer is because management did not take the proper steps to ensure that the same high quality of service can be provided, whether the restaurant is half full or completely full.
My point here is that I think each of us need to look at how we provide service to our customers when times are slow and compare it to the service we provide when things are busy. Is the customer suffering because you are busy? They shouldn’t be. It is up to us to take the steps necessary to ensure consistency of service no matter how slow or busy things are for us.
